316. The Bizarre Stalking of Kristil Krug

- You're listening to an ONO media podcast. - Hey everybody, welcome back to the podcast. This is Murder with My Husband. I'm Peyton Morlin. - No, I'm Garrett Morlin. - And he's the husband. - And I'm the husband. Good morning, good afternoon, good night, but. - You love to say that. - It just depends. Maybe someone's listening in the morning. Maybe they're listening at night time. Maybe it's the middle of the afternoon. Never know. - Okay, you know, maybe they're up on the moon listening. - You never know, maybe someone in the spacecraft right now's listening. Where is the, I wonder the craziest place you're listening to the podcast or watching the podcast? - Yeah, like if you think it's wild. - Like, you're on top of Mount Everest currently watching on Netflix right now with Starlink. - Yeah. - Like that would win the cake. Anyways, but we can go a little smaller. So if there's any other crazy ones, let me know. Thanks for being here. Thank you for supporting us. Tired, not gonna lie. I need to bring some caffeine or something, wake me up. I'm not gonna lie, Garrett's been, like I feel bad. - I ain't no rest for the wicked. - 'Cause you guys know the bagel shop's getting closer and when I tell you Garrett has done, like has just done this by himself. - Okay, yeah, yeah, no. - I know, just let me brag for a minute. - You know, I appreciate it, baby. So much. - Like he, he just, he's a man of many talents. You're an everything bagel. - Thanks, baby. - You can do it all. And so he's been doing it all. And he has been so busy. He's been gone all day long. - It's crazy. - It's pretty amazing. - I appreciate that, baby. I'm really excited. I don't know if you saw the grand opening it's April 25th. So if anyone in Utah, please come check it out. Yeah, I mean, recipes, I'm gonna stop. Busy, working a lot, loving it. I'm excited. Please come by the bagel shop if you like bagels. I hope you guys like the bagels. If not, then this is lie to me. I don't just lie. Lie straight to my face. Do not tell me they're bad. I do not want to hear it. - He's put a little too much effort into this. - It'll send me overboard. It'll send me overboard. But I'm excited. And also, it really important to me is like treating the employees right. I'm trying to pay a way above standard. Like all of our employees are making between $20, $25 an hour. The average is gonna be like $22 an hour. But for our state, 'cause that doesn't suit you. - Yeah, yeah, true. First day, I feel like that's really above average. I feel like everyone's like 15 to like 16, 12. Anyways, I'm kind of ranting, but I just think it's important to pay people their wages. And so I'm trying to do that and be profitable and have a good store at the same time. So also healthy ingredients, really healthy. So yeah, that's what I got. That's my plug. That'll be my 10 seconds because that was kind of long, but thanks for bragging, maybe. - It is, you're, you know, he was the same way with the podcast. I don't know if you've all been here since the beginning, but it was very much just a two-man show, really just a one-man show of Garrett behind the scenes, making this, okay, the content, yes. But I mean, Garrett was the whole business and all of it behind and didn't love having any help or any outside hands on it, which has served us well moving forward. And he's been the exact same with the bagel shop. - Kind of has served as well. - It has. I think it'll serve you well with the bagel shop too. Hard work and like dedication and passion. It's a talent. You have a talent for it and it's amazing. - Thanks, baby. Anyways, Peyton, I got distracted in the middle. I don't remember where we left off, so we're gonna hop into today's case. - All right, you guys are sources for this episode, our ABCNews.go.com, k-a-t-u.com, the Hindustin Times, District Attorney Adams and Broomfield, Colorado, dumber7.com, NBC4i.com, oxygen.com, newsday.com, hooringcares.com, NBCNews.com, ksa-t.com, broomfieldenterprise.com, people.com, klcc.org, apnews.com, CBSnews.com, stocking awareness.org, and sackbe.com. I don't know about you, but is there a chance you have someone from your past that feels like a bit of a wild card? Maybe an old roommate, an ex-partner, a high school acquaintance, someone that will check in randomly, either for a favor or to meet up for coffee. Someone that when you see their name pop up on your phone, you wonder what sort of drama is headed your way. But for most of us, this ends up being a little story we could share later. We never expect those awkward little encounters from someone from our past to be something that changes our lives forever. And yet, that was the case with 44-year-old Kristiel Prug. When someone from Kristiel's past reappeared, it probably felt like an inconvenience at first and uncomfortable blast from the past. But what came next in this case was a never-ending flood of disturbing messages, photos, and threats, and a horrifying truth that no one ever saw coming. So for this episode, I am taking you to Brumfield, Colorado. This is a small city nestled between Denver and Boulder. And this is where in 2023, though not too long ago, 44-year-old Kristiel Prug calls home. Now, Kristiel is someone I would call a jack of all trades. She's a mother of three at this point, ages 14, 11, and eight. She is a talented dancer. She loves to work on old cars. And she is a biochemical engineer by trade. So she's really the kind of person who could do anything they set their mind to and always doing it with a smile. Those who knew Kristiel described her as someone who was known for her quote, kindness, generosity, and infectious laughter. She was the person everyone wanted to be around. Kristiel had spent her entire life in Colorado. She was actually born in Boulder on November 24, 1980. And it was pretty clear from a young age that Kristiel was going to be this multifaceted person. She showed an interest in the arts and sciences pretty early on. She was given an academic scholarship to the Colorado School of Mines. This is a public research university where she began studying for her biochemical engineering degree before eventually transferring to the University of Colorado, which was in Boulder. After graduating, she went on to get a job at a place called Agilent Technologies. They basically make scientific instruments, software, lab supplies, that sort of thing that I could never understand or do. I probably wouldn't even be able to read the manual. And she worked there for the next 19 years of her life. And when she wasn't climbing her way up this professional ladder, Kristiel spent a lot of time with her father working on old classic muscle cars in his garage. They would fix them up and then race them together. And it was something that they had bonded over all throughout Kristiel's life. It was in that garage that Kristiel also eventually confided in her father. Fold him about the tough times, exciting new developments, like when she met and fell in love with a guy named Daniel Krueg. And I'm not sure how the two met, but I know Daniel was a financial analyst with the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment. And back in 2007, they actually decided to tie the knot. And then for the next 16 years, they went on to build a life together. And like I said, they had three children. They created a beautiful home. And what many thought would actually be a happily ever after. That is until someone from Kristiel's past came back to haunt her. And this is where we get into the meat of today's case. So on October 2nd, 2023, Kristiel got a text message from someone that she hadn't heard from in a while. It read, quote, "Hope it's okay. I looked you up." Oh, no, it's not okay. No, it's not okay. I go to Boulder every few weeks and thought we could hook up. You game? Question mark? A little crazy, just under married woman. Like out of the blue, too. Yeah, okay. So the person who sent this text to her phone identified himself as Anthony, AKA Jack, Anthony Pauland. Now, Jack, Anthony and Kristiel had, they did know each other. They had dated for about a year from her senior year of high school going into college. So this is definitely a blast from the past. The two had broke up back in the fall of 2000. So at this point, that's about two decades earlier. Now, this whole texting actually isn't totally shocking or even out of the blue according to Kristiel herself. Apparently, every so often, Anthony would check in with Kristiel to see how things were going. It was usually on Facebook. And during these times, when he would just check in as she went about life, he would sort of hint about how he was still thinking about her. She was the one who got away. I could not stop thinking about his senior year. - From high school man, okay, time to move on. - So according to her, this had supposedly happened once in 2005, once in 2010, and then in 2016. And presumably, Christel told Daniel her husband about it too, especially because she felt like there were times where his messages crossed the line. He obviously knew she was married. He's reaching out on Facebook, but he would say things like, quote, "I feel like we're meant to be together." When this happens again in 2023, Christel's obviously a little annoyed because she has told him to stop. Like when he would send those messages, in the past, she would tell him to stop. It actually got to the point where she even deleted her Facebook to keep it from happening because he kept reaching out via Facebook. And so she was like, you know what, 2016, I'm not using Facebook, I'm gonna need it. - Can you imagine being married? Someone from like 20 whatever plus years ago reaches out and goes, "Hey, do you want to hook up?" Also the fact that he looked her up, stopped her to find her phone number. Now that's not okay. - It's scary, especially after he's been doing this for two decades. - Yeah, that's not okay. - 23 years. - Yeah. - He's been doing this and she's told him no and even deleted her Facebook. - Yeah. - So despite this, despite her high school boyfriend just not being able to move on, according to Kristiel and her family, like when they dated in high school, they remembered him as being a kind, friendly, polite, good guy. So it's not like she was all, this is my crazy ex from the past. - Yeah. - So you can imagine Kristiel's shock when the following day, so October 3rd, she gets another message. And this one is way more aggressive. This one definitely stops her in her tracks. This time Anthony says, "You should kill yourself. Don't waste my time. - Oh my gosh. What's up? - So this is a pretty explosive reaction to someone who just didn't text you back after basically ignoring you and telling you to stop on Facebook for years. But this time it's different because it doesn't stop there. Over the next few days and even weeks, Anthony's messages escalate big time. So some of the texts actually talk about getting rid of Daniel, her husband. So the two of them could finally be together. Messages from an adot Holland email address sent sexually explicit photographs to Kristiel's phone. And then there were messages that showed he was likely stalking or saying he knew her registration stickers on her car were expired. And sending texts like, quote, saw you at the dentist, see you soon. And then came more photos, particularly one of her husband, Daniel, getting out of his car at work, which showed someone was obviously taking this photo from a distance. So this is when Kristiel goes to the police. This is at the end of October. This has happened all through October. Now, remember who Kristiel is? She's extremely smart. She is detail oriented. So she had been keeping a log of information on this stalker documenting every single interaction from dates and times to forms of communication and so forth. She'd put this all together probably because she knew this day would eventually come where she would end up taking it to the police. Now, by this point, Kristiel says she's terrified for her safety, the safety of her family. And the police can see how serious the stalking actually is. I mean, it's like why? Like why out of like why I don't know where? When there's like threats of hurting or killing your husband and then a picture of your husband comes through, that's as real as it gets. And the threats are not just taking a toll on her, but on Daniel as well. He seems equally is terrified. So luckily the police do offer to help. They say they are going to send search warrants to a few different communication companies. Basically looking for a digital confirmation that Anthony Holland, her ex boyfriend from over 20 years ago is really the person behind the stalking. And then that way they can actually get a warrant for his arrest because he has been threatening murder. I'm actually curious how would assume it is, but I guess he never know. But the problem is a lot of information that was requested through those warrants doesn't come back right away. So detectives had sent the warrants on November 12th. Remember the stalking had begun in early October. But for most of the companies that the police are reaching out to Google Verizon text now, they say, hey, it's going to take weeks before we can get this information to you, the information on this specific user. We've talked about this before. I truly think stalking falls in that same, one of the most dangerous things and the same category as domestic abuse and domestic violence. As in, it can escalate so quickly for a DV situation, that can pretty quickly also then someone can end up dead. Same thing with stalking. Like if you don't get it under control, someone could die. Yeah. And so it just, I'm going to get it. There's so much to it, but it sucks that it takes all this time to get all this information. It's so frustrating that these companies can't just give this information over immediately. But detectives say this is not unusual. When serving a search warrant to a major company like this, it can take them weeks, if not months, to get the information back to police, which means in a case like this, a stalking case, prestige is very vulnerable. Until they had the proof to make an arrest, prestige had to take her own measures into her own hands if she wanted to protect herself against her stalker. So she keeps maintaining that stalker log. She installed security cameras around her house. Hopefully it was simply safe using code husband. And after telling her father what was going on, he ends up loaning her a handgun, which she started carrying with her when she left the house. And she even started taking firearm safety classes and hired her own private investigator to start looking into Anthony. Now meanwhile, police were still doing what they could on their end, even going undercover to see if they could catch the stalker following Kristiel and Daniel while he was in the act. 'Cause then they don't necessarily need the information from the warrants. But as time ticked on, the harassment got worse. Kristiel started to understandably grow frustrated with the police's investigation, especially because she had mentioned to some friends that she truly believed someone was gonna end up dead in this situation. - Okay. Same thing happens with DV situations. - And again. - Very similar. - On the surface, we've talked about this before as Garrett was saying, but stalking just seems like a word, right? - People are not. - It's like, come on. - It's like, oh, stalking, but stalking is so scary. I don't think you understand the gravity of a situation like that. - Can we not stalk? Like, can we just, as a society, can we not kill people? You don't know, but stalking is blows my mind. - And it is so eerie. - Weird. - It takes and it really leaves an impact on the victim more than society, I think, addresses because it's, again, on the outside looking and it's like, ooh, someone took a picture of your husband. Like when you actually think about how this guy's threatening your husband's life and then it's following him around, it's actually really scary. - People are so, people are so weird. - I know. - Anyways, okay, sorry. Keep going. - So anyways, she's telling people in her life like this is real, this is a big deal and I think someone's gonna end up dead and she was gonna do everything in her power to make sure that it was not her. So by December 2023, Kristiel and her family had been dealing with this harassment for two entire months and it honestly didn't seem to be letting up if anything, it was getting worse. So you can imagine Daniel's fears when he called Kristiel on the afternoon of the 14th and she didn't answer. So that was when Daniel called the police to say quote, which again, this isn't like normal behavior, your wife doesn't answer the phone, but in this situation, they're probably being more careful than ever. So he calls the police and says, I don't think it's an emergency, but again, due to our situation, this feels really weird. My wife isn't responding to text messages or phone calls. He then asked if someone was able to go over to his house to do a welfare check on his wife while he was at work. Now shortly thereafter, around noon, an officer named John O'Hare takes a trip to the crew's home in Brumfield, Colorado, and he knocks on the door. There's no answer. So O'Hare pulls his truck closer to the garage door and he climbs on the hood to see if he can see in through the upper windows, like into the garage. And this is when he spots her. steel unmoving and currently bleeding on the floor of her garage with a wound to her head. So the officer kicks open the door of the house, weapon drawn, unsure if the attacker is still inside. And when he finds the scene is all clear, he then obviously be lines to the garage to crystal. But when he gets in there, he can tell it's too late. Mike, she's dead. Crystal crew is dead on her garage floor. So the officer who was just called to do a wellness check, but knowing it was a stalker situation, calls for backup, the medical examiner finds that crystal was likely ambushed from behind and hit multiple times in the head with a blunt object before she was then stabbed in the heart. Stabbed in the heart. Daniel and Crystal's family are called to the scene and they feel completely certain. Obviously, there was only one person who could have done this. They have been dreading this day. Crystal's stalker Anthony Collins. Now, meanwhile, Daniel, her husband is an absolute mess. He's hysterical on the shoulder of a victim advocate that is at the crime scene. He's taken down to the station for questioning and he keeps insisting one thing. He wants to tell his kids about his wife's passing. He doesn't want the police to do it. So once detectives calm him down, they're able to get a little more out of him about that morning. He's like, no, I mean, nothing stood out. Their mornings in the house were pretty routine. That day was no different. He said, Crystal took the kids to school. She was usually home by 8 a.m. While he headed into the office around that time, as always. He said, as he was driving in, his phone dinged with a message from her asking if he could pick up one of their kids after school. He said he texted back. Okay. Yeah. What time? But then Crystal never replied back. So he says, I'm sorry to interrupt. I just feel like I feel like there's going to be a twist. You bite the you better bite those cheeks. I'm not like there's going to be a twist. I just let you. I let you. Okay. Keep going. Keep going. I'm waiting for it now. So he's like, she never responded. He waited. He waited. And he's like, and because of our circumstance, I got nervous. I made the call to the police to do the welfare check. Now, the police are thinking the same thing as the family. There's obviously one person who seems glaringly responsible for this. The person who's been threatening her life for the last couple of months. Crystal's stalker. And thanks to that PI, she had hired. They know where he lives in Eagle, Mountain, Utah. No way. About an eight to nine hour drive. I know exactly where that is from Broomefield, Colorado. Wait, you. Sorry. Keep going. I keep interrupting. Nothing. No, you can say it. No, I just got my mind's moving right now. Okay. So the police investigating Crystal's case need to contact a local sheriff's department there. They need the sheriff from Utah to go talk to him. Since he, I mean, on paper, he lives far away. Now, a few hours after Crystal's body is found, they descend on Anthony's home. And what they discover is pretty, let's just say confusing. Anthony is home alone watching TV when he gets a knock on the door. And when he answers, one of the first things the deputies ask him is, Hey, have you heard the name Crystal Krueger before? And he's like, yeah, she was one of my first girlfriends. We broke up years ago back in 2000. So then they asked, well, one was the last time you spoke to her. And he's like, uh, not for years, I think 2016. He was like, that was when I last message her on Facebook to say that I missed her. But he couldn't understand why police were now knocking on his door in Utah asking him about his ex-girlfriend in Colorado. Now, they didn't mention at this point that Crystal had been murdered. And they're like, okay, well, where were you earlier today? He says, well, I've been mostly at home, but I did run out to coals earlier because he needed a new sweatshirt. Oh my gosh. I'm not going to say anything if you guys don't know where this is going, but this is not. So deputies are like, great, can you prove this? And he goes and gets his receipt. And sure enough, in his home, he has a receipt from coals dated that same day. And the time of the purchase was 12 16 p.m. This was right around the time that Christel's body was found, meaning there was absolutely no way. He could have driven a Colorado and back in time to kill Christel and secure that alibi for himself. This is something that's also confirmed and backed up with license plate readers and presumably surveillance video at the store. But what's interesting is Anthony said something mysteriously came over him that morning. The thought just popped up in his head. He said he got this weird sudden urge to go by a sweatshirt. He wasn't even planning on doing that this day. And then Anthony later said he actually believes it was Christel's way of protecting him from beyond the grave. A way to help clear his name because it was now becoming obvious that Anthony Holland, like Garrett was hinting at, was most likely not the stalker. He denied playing any part in those messages, which meant this investigation was going to require some digital forensics. A search to find who was actually messaging Christel if it was not Anthony Holland, her real life ex-boyfriend that was in Utah. So detective start by looking into the couple's surveillance cameras around the house. The ones that Christel installed after the threats had began and they find something odd. All of those cameras had actually been manually turned off the morning she died. And the doorbell camera had been covered with blue masking tape, which is obviously creepy, but it doesn't paint the whole picture so they move on to another angle, specifically. They reach back out to those big companies who still haven't responded to the warrants from the stalking case. Google, Verizon, text now and this time they're like, yeah, so she's been murdered so we have exigent circumstances, meaning we've got a homicide case on our hands and you need to make this a priority. Now the information comes through within hours. And one of the things they learned from those warrants is the stalker used an IP address that was, quote, similar to the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment building. That's crazy. Who works there? Christel's husband Daniel Krug. In fact, two different accounts used to harass Christel had come from the same IP location, which if you're thinking it right now, I'm going to say it out loud. If these companies had just responded to these warrants faster, they would have realized that these texts were not coming from Eagle Mountain Utah, but were coming from her husband's place of work. I'm just so, did he not think he was like, once they went to Utah and realized this guy didn't leave Utah, what did he think was going to happen? You know what I'm saying? Maybe he was hoping that guy wouldn't go to Coles. So confused. It's crazy. I don't know. For me, it's just frustrating because it's like so obviously preventable or at least she could have protected herself from the correct person who's her own husband. Yes. And it's like they, it's so obviously tied back to his place of work like that. Yeah. I mean, this feels like a smoking gun, but police still have to rule out the possibility that this wasn't someone who just worked with Daniel, maybe an enemy, maybe an affair partner. So they bring Daniel in for another round of questioning, which is a good point. I mean, if he was falling around with someone from work, that person could have easily been doing this. So this time they tell her husband, hey, we actually went to Utah to confront Anthony and he has a rock solid alibi. There is no way that this man is the one who murdered Christel. And that's when Daniel's entire demeanor changes in this interview. He sits back on the couch, he crosses his arms, he begins getting defensive, a little bit combative. And as soon as he realizes what's going on that he is now being considered a suspect in his wife's murder, he starts insisting that he had nothing to do with it. And he tells police, quote, I just want the effort to pay. He took my children's mother before Christmas. They're never going to get over that. I don't care if you capture him. I don't care if you kill him. Find him. Don't just assume it's me keep looking. Okay. So they're like, okay, bro, enough with the drama. They start okay. He's like it. I don't even care if you find the guy, but don't say it's me. And he's actually talking in circles because he's also like, I just want the guy to pay, but I don't care if you find him. Don't just think it's me like go find him. So they start looking closer at what was going on in the marriage, obviously prior to Christel's death. And after speaking with Christel's parents, they learned that this marriage wasn't great. Crystal had been sleeping on the couch for the last few months and was actually questioning her future with Daniel. She told her family that he had a really bad temper and the smallest, most random things would set him off. That she was constantly walking on eggshells around him, unsure when he was going to lose control. And according to some sources, Crystal had even started talking about divorce in the last few weeks of her life. And Crystal had begun looking into how she could get full custody of their three children. As far as I could tell, Crystal never filed any official reports against Daniel for domestic abuse. So for investigators, this is pretty circumstantial at the moment. You basically just have through word of mouth that their marriage wasn't going good and she was considering divorce. But nothing really on paper to prove that though, obviously is enough for them to keep focusing on him. And that is when they discover the burner phones. Yeah, I figured it was either a second phone or a burner phone. I mean, obviously at this point, which is great evidence, physical evidence. Uh, out of all the ways to kill your wife, pretending to be a stalker from high school that loads in a different state. And why? Like leave. I never understand this. Just leave. Like if you really don't want to be with that person, leave. So their digital forensics expert found that not only had Daniel created fake email accounts to disguise himself as Anthony, which were created on a password protected network at his office. Mind you. He also had burner phones which he used to torment his wife phones that were tied to a visa gift card that was registered in Daniel's name. I mean, he just yeah. They also discovered Google searches on his devices in the days leading up to the murder. Things like quote, when is a head injury a cause for concern? Well, how hard would you have to hit someone in the head to make them unconscious? Well, how long can you be unconscious without brain damage? So what? Those honestly. Those are crazy. Those are, yeah, but they don't feel like murder. Almost like he wanted to knock her out. Yes. Yeah. Which was just a little strange. Yeah. I mean, the police were probably hoping for our typical Google searches of like, where to find a shovel? And yeah, how do you bury a human body? How do you clean up after you kill somebody? Yeah. Either way, they're still not great considering that she died of being hit in the head. So as far as how he pulled some of these things off like the creepy photos of himself, if you remember, well, the digital forensics expert found that that photo was taken in selfie mode using a timer. It was propped up on a car next to him set and then Daniel staged it to look like he was getting out of his car while the photo was taken and then he sent it to his own wife using a burner phone. But the bigger question for detectives was how did his wife send him a text from her phone after he had already left for the day? As remember, he claims I left and then she texted me and he never came back. Well, on the day of the murder, surveillance cameras caught him leaving for work a little later than usual around 824. This is 30 minutes later than when he initially told police he left for work just before crystal came home at 8 a.m. Plus, the digital investigator found crystal had a feature on her phone that would allow her to schedule texts to be sent, meaning they could be pre-typed and then timed to automatically send to someone else's phone later on. Man, he put so much work into this. And that is exactly what Daniel did using crystal's phone after she died. So here is how investigators think this entire thing played out. Around 8 a.m. that morning, after dropping her kids off at school, crystal pulled into her garage where her husband was waiting to attack her. Once she got out of her car, he ambushed her, hitting her in the head multiple times with a blunt object before flipping her around and stabbing her in the heart. Gosh, dude. Why? And then he took her phone. He scheduled some texts to go out, one to himself, one to a detective investigating her stalking case, and then one to a family member. All of this to create an alibi for himself as in she was still alive after he had left. And then around 815 a.m., he used crystal's phone to disable the home security cameras. He covered the doorbell camera with tape, he got into his car, and then disabled his own dashboard camera. My eye ad, he then stopped for coffee and headed to work for the day. I'm just trying to figure out why. Did he just not like his wife? Like what? What's going on? All of this while his wife is bleeding out on his garage floor. At 8.56 a.m., he gets that scheduled message from crystal to create the illusion that she was still alive. Even though investigators later found the last time her device was used was actually 8.22 a.m. a half hour before. And then he called the police around 12 p.m. to say, hey, I haven't heard back from my wife that she has a stalker. I'm worried can you go do a welfare check. This way they would find her body and he would look like an innocent grieving husband. So two days after crystal's death, on December 16, 2023, two days. Police have a warrant for Daniels arrest. They follow him with eight police cars to a grocery store parking lot. They ambush him as he's getting out of his car. And that is one of the detectives asks him this quote, you want me to tell your kids that you killed their mother or do you want somebody else to? Do you want to tell your kids that you killed their mother or do you want someone else to do it? That's so cool. That's so cool. So after, I mean, horrible, absolutely horrendous, that their kids have to figure out that their dad killed their mom. It's ironic to say the very ironic. So Daniel was charged with first degree murder, criminal impersonation and stalking, and pleaded not guilty to all of the charges. But one of the bigger questions in this case, Garrett just asked, why? Why did he do it? Why go about it in the way he did? Well, the theory is, Daniel was actually trying to win, Christel over, that this didn't start as a murder plan, just as a way to be her night in shining armor. You wanted to be there for her in this time of need. But over time, it added more stress and tension to their relationship. He had started doing the stalking to try to reconnect with Christel, but it didn't do what he wanted. Yeah. And eventually, police believe Christel even started to suspect that maybe Daniel was behind some of this. Daniel told police in his first interview that Christel had said to him, quote, I can't even rule you out as the stalker. And when she went to the police and they started an investigation into the stalking, that's when Daniel realized that he was losing control of the situation because they had just put a warrant out to figure out where these texts were coming from. And he knows they weren't coming from Eagle Mountain Utah. So he figured it was only a matter of time before he was exposed. And the only way to keep the secret was to silence the one person who suspected him. And that was Christel. Maybe if she died, they wouldn't even look into the stalking anymore. So Daniel's trial began in April of 2025. Obviously, the prosecution paints the picture I just told you that he had created the stalker to win over his wife. And then it backfired. And actually, I find this interesting, I want to include it at trial, a former girlfriend testified that he kind of done a similar thing to her. So she gets on the stand and is like, he created fake online personas to harass me after we broke up. So he's definitely done this whole pretend to be someone else to try to accomplish something with my person of interest. Obviously, the defense tries to argue the possibility that Christel was having an affair, maybe with someone that he worked with. And that was the person that attacked her. And that's why the messages came from there. They also mentioned the possibility that someone other than her husband was the stalker. The problem with this case was there was no physical evidence that connected Daniel to the murder as far as there was like her blood wasn't found with him. There was no murder weapon. Oh, interesting. Honestly, if it weren't for the stalking like them proving that it came from him, he probably would have got away with it. The good point. But after three weeks of testimony, the jurors went to deliberate 44-year-old Daniel Krueger was found guilty of first degree murder, stalking and criminal impersonation. Now, as of January, 2026, some of Christel's family in Oregon was working with law makers to try and pass Christel's law. They believed that if the warrants were acted on sooner, yeah, the ones sent to places like Google and Verizon, Christel might still be alive today. If they hadn't taken weeks to process, Kristiel might have gotten confirmation that her husband was her stalker and would have been able to take the proper measures to ensure her safety. So Kristiel's law would try to prevent these specific delays. It would require communication companies to return search warrants within 48 hours of receiving them, specifically in the case of domestic violence and stalking. So if you're doing a warrant to a communication company and it has anything to do with stalking, domestic violence, they have to do it fast. This could lead to a lot of saved lives, honestly. If you or someone you know is a victim of stalking, there are resources to help. You can contact the stalking prevention awareness and resource center at 1-855-4 victim. And if you feel like you are in immediate danger, obviously, please call 911. And if Kristiel's story moved you today, her family has actually set up a GoFundMe page, which you can find linked in the episode description. That's on any audio platform. Again, just a way to be able to listen to this case and also, you know, do our part to try and help. All right, you guys, and that was the murder of Kristiel Krug. - Just crazy. You know, these kids have to grow up without a mom, without a dad, again, I hate the domino effect, I hate it. - There's always more than one victim. - Yeah. - Thank you guys so much for listening to today's episode. And we will see you next time with another one. I love it. - I hate it. - Goodbye.